Curcumin Combination Chemotherapy: The Implication and Efficacy in Cancer

Abstract

Many chemotherapeutic drugs have been used for the treatment of cancer, for instance, doxorubicin, irinotecan, 5-fluorouracil, cisplatin, and paclitaxel. However, the effectiveness of chemotherapy is limited in cancer therapy due to drug resistance, therapeutic selectivity, and undesirable side effects. The combination of therapies with natural compounds is likely to increase the effectiveness of drug treatment as well as reduce the adverse outcomes. Curcumin, a polyphenolic isolated from Curcuma longa, belongs to the rhizome of Zingiberaceae plants. Studies from in vitro and in vivo revealed that curcumin exerts many pharmacological activities with less toxic effects. The biological mechanisms underlying the anticancer activity of co-treatment curcumin and chemotherapy are complex and worth to discuss further. Therefore, this review aimed to address the molecular mechanisms of combined curcumin and chemotherapy in the treatment of cancer. The anticancer activity of combined nanoformulation of curcumin and chemotherapy was also discussed in this study. Taken together, a better understanding of the implication and underlying mechanisms of action of combined curcumin and chemotherapy may provide a useful approach to combat cancer diseases.

Highly Bioavailable Forms of Curcumin and Promising Avenues for Curcumin-Based Research and Application: A Review

“…Curcumin administered with various drugs can be efficacious for treatment of many diseases and conditions [53]. Combination therapy reduced the signs and symptoms of diseases, and in many instances, prevented diseases.…”

“…In this regard, curcumin-mediated enhanced expression of pro-apoptotic molecules such as BAK and BID, and reduced expression of anti-apoptotic molecules such as BCL-2, BCL-XL and MCL-1 in the chemotherapy-treated cancer cells remains an active area of research. Furthermore, curcumin's synergistic effect on docetaxel to activate tumor suppressor p53 and inhibit phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor type 2 (HER2) are noteworthy reports [53,55,57].…”

New Paradigms to Assess Consequences of Long-Term, Low-Dose Curcumin Exposure in Lung Cancer Cells

“…Here, we evaluated whether long-term exposure to low-dose curcumin affected the response of cells to the chemotherapy agents, cisplatin and pemetrexed, used as first-line chemotherapy in NSCLC of non-squamous histology with no known EGFR sensitising mutation, and also at relapse for those with EGFR mutation. Several reports have previously suggested that curcumin may offer a sensitising effect when administered at high doses in conjunction with chemotherapy drugs [12][13][14][15]. When given at low-dosage over three months (which is more consistent with administration in a preventive setting), no sensitising effect was observed in three lung cancer cell lines exhibiting different mutational spectra (A549: K-ras mutant; PC9: EGFR driver mutation; PC9ER: EGFR driver mutation but exhibiting erlotinib resistance).…”

Resveratrol targeting the Wnt signaling pathway: A focus on therapeutic activities

“…This phenomenon has led to a decrease in the potential of chemotherapeutic agents such as paclitaxel, oxaliplatin, temozolomide (TMZ), and so on (Pokhriyal, Hariprasad, Kumar, & Hariprasad, 2019). Much attention has been made towards the molecular pathways that contribute to the resistance of cancer cells to chemotherapy (Tan and Norhaizan, 2019 Autophagy is a catabolic process that plays a significant role in providing energy during stress conditions such as starvation (Galluzzi & Green, 2019). This mechanism contributes to the degradation of aged or damaged organelles and components (Ashrafizadeh, Yaribeygi, Zare, Butler, Barreto, & Sahebkar, 2019).…”